Short Story- First start after build.. some smoke as expected, took car out to seat rings & run heat cycles. 25 miles on the car now, slight amount of smoke on rev ups. No smoke at idle. Plug 1,2,4 CLEAN, Plug #3 slightly wet with oil, fresh plug installed

125 Miles on motor, lost ~.75 qt No smoke at idle. If I am comming down a hill off the throttle say 40mph in 4th... at the bottom of the hill I throttle & it blows a pretty decent cloud & clears right out. Friends have said they smell slight burning oil?Running Rich? when cruising behind me in a 50mph zone but done see anything. CEL for misfire cyl 3 came and went on its own, plug not so wet but oil still evident.

This is the 7th zetec motor ive built with IDENTICAL internals / same machine shop & never had this issue. Rings were installed properly indexed. I install all of my pistons wet (dip in non detergent oil b4 dropping piston into cylinder). My guy over at the machine shop keeps telling me its because I didnt install them dry (rings / walls parts cleaned dry) and "turn the motor over by hand 30 revolutions to seat the rings to the hone".

Compression Test-

106 102 108 103

Im debating pulling the windage pan / head & sliding piston #3 out to see whats going on there... Any ideas before I start pulling this appart again? =/

First thing I did was replace the valve stem seals on that cylinder thinking maybe 1 got messed up durring install somehow. LOVE the DOHV valve spring compressor i have that bolts to the valve cover bolt holes:

No help though... valve cover breather isnt pushing out irregular amount of vapor... like 99% its not in the head, invested ALOT into it

could the rings on #3 have shifted after indexing? maybe something odd with a clearance you didnt catch? I have always installed pistons wet.

Well i do remember being extra careful & putting compressor on each piston in the same fashion keeping it from rotating while compressing... each one dropped in with a few taps from the handle of my rubber-deadblow and moved like butter in the cylinder

Well sure you do pistons wet , spinning the engine wont do anything to help seat the rings tho

Tom

thats what i told him... but he is all dead set on dry assembly, he claims better compression, less blowby & blablabla. Dry wasnt even an option because i was building my motor piece by piece over the course of a year as money slowly rolled in...

so i took her out for a ride today, just hit 200 miles

Figured id mention i tossed my wideband in for a short time and its ALL over the place. would this be the slight oil burning... orrr because of the bigger valves, ported head & 9:1 compression block? good thing i havent touched boost

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